Kate Mosse - Labyrinth

Her pale brown sleeveless shirt and matching trousers seemed to shimmer and reflect the light as she moved. With a gold bracelet on her wrist and a choker at her neck, she looked like an Egyptian princess.

Alice was sure she’d seen her before. In a magazine or in a film, perhaps on television?

The woman got into a car. Alice watched her until she was out of sight, then walked to the door of the Basilica. A beggar stood outside, her hand stretched out. Alice fished in her pocket and pressed a coin into the woman’s hand, then went to go in.

She froze, her hand on the door. She felt as if she was caught in a tunnel of cold air.

Don’t be stupid.

Alice once more tried to make herself go in, determined not to give in to such irrational feelings. The same terror that had overwhelmed her at Saint-Etienne in Toulouse held her back.

Apologising to the people behind, Alice stepped out of the line and sank down on a shaded stone ledge beside the north door.

What the hell is happening to me?

Her parents had taught her to pray. When she was old enough to question the presence of evil in the world and found that the Church could provide no satisfactory answers, she’d taught herself to stop. But she remembered the sense of meaning that religion can confer. The certainty, the promise of salvation lying somewhere beyond the clouds had never entirely left her. When she had time, like Larkin, she always stopped. She felt at home in churches. They evoked in her a sense of history and a shared past which spoke to her through the architecture, the windows, the choir stalls.

But not here.

In these Catholic cathedrals of the Midi she felt not peace but threat.

The stench of evil seemed to bleed out of the bricks. She looked up at the hideous gargoyles that leered down at her, their twisted mouths distorted and sneering.

Alice got up quickly and left the square. She kept glancing over her shoulder, telling herself she was imagining it, yet not able to shake the feeling there was someone at her heels.

It’s just your imagination.

Even when she left the Cite and started to walk down rue Trivalle towards the main town, she felt just as nervous. No matter what she said ItiO“herself, she was sure someone was following her.

The offices of Daniel Delagarde were in rue George Brassens. The brass on the wall gleamed in the sunlight. She was a little early for her appointment, so she stopped to read the names before going in. Karen Fleury was about halfway up, one of only two women.

Alice went up the grey stone steps, pushed open the glass double doors found herself in a tiled reception area. She gave her name to the woman at a highly polished mahogany table and was directed to a waiting area. The silence was oppressive. A rather bucolic looking man in his late fifties nodded to her as she walked in. Copies of Paris Match , Immo Media .and several back editions of French Vogue were neatly stacked on a large table in the centre of the room. There was an ormolu clock on the white marble mantelpiece and a tall, rectangular glass vase filled with sunflowers in the grate.

Alice sat down in a black leather armchair next to the window and pretended to read.

“Ms Tanner? Karen Fleury. Good to meet you.”

Alice stood up, immediately liking the look of her. In her mid-thirties, Ms Fleury exuded an air of competence in a sombre black suit and white blouse. Her neat blonde hair was clipped short. She wore a gold cross at her neck.

“My funeral clothes,” she said, noticing Alice’s glance. “Very hot in this weather.”

“I can imagine.”

She held back the door for Alice to pass through. “Shall we?”

“How long have you been working out here?” asked Alice, as they walked down an increasingly shabby network of corridors.

We moved here a couple of years ago. My husband’s French. Loads of English people are moving down here, all needing solicitors to help them, so it’s worked out rather well.“

Karen led her into a small office at the back of the building.

“It’s great you could come in person,” she said, gesturing Alice to a chair. “I’d assumed we’d conduct most of our business over the phone.”

“Good timing. Just after I received the letter from you, a friend who’s working outside Foix invited me to come and visit her. It seemed too much of an opportunity to ignore.” She paused. “Besides, given the size and nature of the bequest, it seemed the least I could do to come in person.”

Karen smiled. Well, it makes things easier from my point of view and will also speed things up.“ She pulled a brown file towards her. ”From what you said on the phone, it didn’t sound as if you knew much about your aunt.“

Alice pulled a face. “Actually, I’d never heard of her at all. I’d no idea Dad had any living relatives, let alone a half sister. I was under the impression my parents were both only children. There certainly weren’t any aunts or uncles around at Christmas or birthdays.”

Karen glanced down at her notes. You lost them some time ago.“

“They were killed in a car accident when I was eighteen,” she said. “May

1993. Just before I was due to sit my A levels.“

“Dreadful for you.”

Alice nodded. What more was there to say?

You have no brothers or sisters?“

“I assumed that my parents left it too late. They were both quite old, relatively speaking, when I was born. In their forties.”

Karen nodded. “Well, in the circumstances, I think the best thing is for me to simply go through everything I’ve got in the file about your great aunt’s estate and the terms of her will. Once we’re done here, you can go and have a look at the house if you’d like to. It’s in a small town about an hour’s drive from here, Salleles d’Aude.”

“That sounds fine.”

“So what I’ve got here,” Karen continued, tapping the file, “is pretty basic stuff, names and dates and so forth. I’m sure when you visit the house you’ll get a better sense of her personally from her private papers and effects. Once you’ve had a look, you can decide if you’d like us to have the house cleared or if you’d rather do it yourself. How much longer are you here?”

“Technically until Sunday, although I’m thinking about staying on. There’s nothing desperately urgent I need to get back for.”

Karen nodded as she glanced at her notes.

Well, let’s start and see how we get on. Grace Alice Tanner was your father’s half sister. She was born in London in 1912, the youngest and only surviving child of five. Two other girls died in infancy and the two boys were killed in World War I. Her mother passed away in“ – she paused, running her finger down the page until she found the date she was looking for – ‘1928 after a long illness and the family broke up. Grace left home by then and her father moved away from the area and quietly married again. There was one child from that marriage, your father, who was born the following year. So far as I can tell from the records, there appears to have been little or no contact between Miss Tanner and her father – your grandfather – from that point onwards.”

“I didn’t know, but do you think it’s likely my father knew he had a half sister?”

“I have no idea. My guess would be that he didn’t.”

“But Grace clearly knew of him?”

“Yes, although how and when she found out, again I don’t know. More to the point, she knew about you. She revised her will in 1993, after your parents’ deaths, naming you as her sole beneficiary. By that time, she had been living in France for some time.”

Alice frowned. “If she knew about me and about what had happened, I don’t understand why she didn’t get in touch.”